2012 Climate Events: The start of the term

Last week I gave my summary of what I thought were the most important climate change discoveries or news of 2011. Of course, my choices were a bit arcane, but that’s me. I did not talk about the remarkable extreme weather and climate events of the last year – really last 2 years. Others have the knowledge and do that better than I, and, staying close to home, I will refer you to Jeff Master’s Blogs and Chris Burt's Blogs.

There were a couple of temperature facts that struck me: 1) The last month when the global mean monthly average was below the 20th century average was February 1985. There have been 321 consecutive months with the temperature above the 20th century average (link from NOAA), and 2) This graph from the World Meteorological Organization’s Provisional Statement of the Climate (link to statement):

Figure 1: From WMO Provisional Statement. Temperature difference (anomaly) calculated for 1961-1990 average. La Niña years are marked. La Niña years should be cooler that average based on natural variability. 2010 was the warmest La Niña year on record, and the 10th warmest year on record.

This graph shows a systematic trend of the years which should be cool, the La Niña years, getting warmer. This combination of a warming trend in the years which should be cool years and more than 25 years of global monthly means being above the long-term average are simple and compelling measurements of the warming earth. Plus remember during this time of persistent warm months, we had that period of the Sun being inactive, and hence, also being a cooling influence (an old blog to remind you of that).

This information coupled with measurements of increasing carbon dioxide emissions noted in the last entry, well I will not be teaching that we can avoid dangerous warming in the next century.

So what are the other things that have struck me as interesting going into the Winter 2012 semester at Michigan?

1) At the top of the list is a judicial ruling that the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard is, in fact, unconstitutional. It violates the interstate commerce clause that governs commerce between states. Frequently, environmental law evolves through commerce law and the assurance of open markets between the states. Ironically, at the center of the ruling is ethanol.

2) Next on the list is that in 2011 the leading U.S. export was gasoline and other refined petroleum products (from Wall Street Journal). This is a consequence of the recession, high gasoline prices, and more fuel efficient vehicles. This is significant enough that refineries in Philadelphia are likely to be closed. There are all sorts of interesting facets of this news – energy, economics, technology, and climate change.

3) Reindeer: The warming in the Arctic has been much higher than the average global warming. Here is the 2011 Arctic Report Card. This report documents large changes in the atmosphere, sea ice and ocean, and snow extent, glacier mass and permafrost. There are efforts to rescue reindeer. There is a threat because the warming temperatures means there are more ice storms, rather than the snow associated with colder temperatures. This encases their food. This combination of changes, persistent over many years, again, is indicative of cumulative changes and systematic warming.

5) And just to confuse us all: Manatees in Florida are threatened by cold temperatures. The deaths in 2011 were high with cold weather listed as the greatest threat. What does that say about weather, climate, climate variability and climate change? If I get the question, I will start here.

I'm very happy that I rub you the wrong way. You sound almost hysterical when you reply to my posts. Perhaps you are hysterical because you see the handwriting on the wall. More and more of the public see through this charade termed, at this point, "climate disruption." Take your Xanax please.

LMAO! I am doing my utmost best to show some emphasis on all of the points that you are so absolutely incorrect on. Unfortunately, this required for me to highlight everything you claim. None of what you claimed is true. Heavy emphasis NONE!

"In 2006, the warmists said snow in the Alps would be a thing in the past."

You then provide a link to an article that absolutely does not support your claim. - Please read the article again and then quote the part of the article that supports your claim.

Here is a quote from the article you linked:

"Climatologists, however, say the warming trend will become dramatic by 2020. The new studies are alarming, suggesting that the Alps are warming twice as fast as the average in the rest of the world. In 1980, 75 percent of Alpine glaciers were advancing; now, 90 percent are retreating." - Is there anything in the quote that suggests "warmists" say that snow in the Alps will be a thing of the past? ANYTHING?

Now you link to WUWT to back up what you said? You cannot even use your original link to back your claims so you you now link to a non science, factually challenged web site of a known denialist that cannot even back up what he says?

Either your reading comprehension skills are substandard, or your ability to state the facts are substandard, or your ability to be less than factual is above standard. Perhaps a blend of all three?

I'm very happy that I rub you the wrong way. You sound almost hysterical when you reply to my posts. Perhaps you are hysterical because you see the handwriting on the wall. More and more of the public see through this charade termed, at this point, "climate disruption." Take your Xanax please.

Won't eliminating Sulfur in gasoline tend to warm the planet more since sulfur dioxide from volcanoes is known to cool the planet?

Senators warn new EPA rules would raise gas prices

Senators from both sides of the aisle are warning that looming EPA regulations on gasoline could impose billions of dollars in additional costs on the industry and end up adding up to 25 cents to every gallon of gas.

The senators, in a letter this week to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, urged the agency to back off the yet-to-be-released regulations. Though the EPA has not yet issued any proposal, they claimed the agency is planning to call for a new requirement to reduce the sulfur content in gasoline.

Citing the nearly $3.40-a-gallon average price of gas and the state of the economy, the senators said "now is not the time for new regulations that will raise the price of fuel even further."

They said it would be "expensive" for companies to meet the sulfur targets and cited a study that found it could add up to $17 billion in industry-wide, up-front expenses, in addition to another $13 billion in annual operating costs.

This could in turn add between 12 and 25 cents to an average gallon of gasoline "depending on the stringency of the proposed rule," they wrote.

"If the EPA does not proceed carefully with its regulations, the nationwide price of fuel could increase to the further detriment of consumers and businesses," the senators warned.

Asked Friday for a response to the concerns, the EPA said: "EPA is still in the process of developing the proposal."

An EPA official said publicly in November that the agency was developing the so-called "Tier 3" standards proposal during a House subcommittee hearing.

Margo Oge, director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, told lawmakers that the proposal would help the country meet its "clean air goals."

"Motor vehicles and their fuel are an important source of compounds that form air pollution," she said.

Oge said reducing sulfur in gasoline would make emission control technology more effective, and "the end result would be cleaner air."

If the EPA formally issues the proposal, it would probably take more than a year for the agency to review public comments and finalize any plan.

A Senate Republican aide said the authority to tighten the sulfur standards comes from the Clean Air Act but noted that EPA has the discretion to either impose the standards or not.

The current sulfur standard is 30 parts per million in gasoline -- that's down from a prior standard of 300 parts per million. The new proposal could bring the standard down to 10 parts per million, according to the senators who wrote to Jackson

The aide said there was a "bigger benefit" when the standard dropped from 300 to 30 parts per million. But squeezing that down to 10 parts per million, the aide said, might not offer as much bang for the buck.

"They're extraordinarily expensive relative to the last round of sulfur reductions," the aide told FoxNews.com.

Quoting Neapolitan:My dear, please read what the good Dr. Jones said, then get back to us. Thanks!

Does Dr. Jones he wear Nike's and anticipate a mothership?

"When religion is in the hands of the mere natural man, he is always the worse for it; it adds a bad heat to his own dark fire and helps to inflame his four elements of selfishness, envy, pride, and wrath. And hence it is that worse passions, or a worse degree of them are to be found in persons of great religious zeal than in others that made no pretenses to it." --William Law

"The government we have is not the government we need," Obama told business owners he'd gathered at the White House.

Sounding like a manager of a disorganized company, and looking like one by pointing to slides as he spoke, Obama asked Congress to give him a kind of reorganization power no president has had since Ronald Reagan.

Of course I read it. Your warmist bent doesn't let you see the main points. As an aside, there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, even though you warmists claim the sky is falling because of CO2 increase. Don't be sad:

"In 2006, the warmists said snow in the Alps would be a thing in the past."

You then provide a link to an article that absolutely does not support your claim. - Please read the article again and then quote the part of the article that supports your claim.

Here is a quote from the article you linked:

"Climatologists, however, say the warming trend will become dramatic by 2020. The new studies are alarming, suggesting that the Alps are warming twice as fast as the average in the rest of the world. In 1980, 75 percent of Alpine glaciers were advancing; now, 90 percent are retreating." - Is there anything in the quote that suggests "warmists" say that snow in the Alps will be a thing of the past? ANYTHING?

Now you link to WUWT to back up what you said? You cannot even use your original link to back your claims so you you now link to a non science, factually challenged web site of a known denialist that cannot even back up what he says?

Either your reading comprehension skills are substandard, or your ability to state the facts are substandard, or your ability to be less than factual is above standard. Perhaps a blend of all three?

Interesting read and more proof climate models suck and this winter proves the theory in this PEER REVIEWED paper sucks. Link I really liked when asked in an interview why the theory did not pan out this year Judah Cohen says that remains elusive, IOW we have no idea how it really works. Peer review hahaha all they had to do was look outside to know the paper is wrong yet published it anyway

Did you even read that article? There is no claim stated that snow in the Alps will be a thing of the past. The most it claims is that by 2020 there will be more ski resorts, in the Alps, affected from a warming climate. Is it 2020 already? How is this even remotely considered a failed prediction? How many ski resorts,world wide, have been impacted by too little or no snow this season?

Of course I read it. Your warmist bent doesn't let you see the main points. As an aside, there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, even though you warmists claim the sky is falling because of CO2 increase. Don't be sad:

Quoting NeapolitanFan:In 2006, the warmists said snow in the Alps would be a thing in the past. I think I'm going to keep a record of failed predictions by the warmists. Must be in the thousands by now:

Did you even read that article? There is no claim stated that snow in the Alps will be a thing of the past. The most it claims is that by 2020 there will be more ski resorts, in the Alps, affected from a warming climate. Is it 2020 already? How is this even remotely considered a failed prediction? How many ski resorts,world wide, have been impacted by too little or no snow this season?

IN the middle of an Aussie summer, this little guy shouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell.

Yet snow fell as low as 1360m - on the edges of Thredbo Village - leading to a flurry of summer holiday snowman making yesterday. At 5pm Thredbo Weather Station, at 1957m, recorded a temperature of -0.3C.

Weather 'tricks' trees into leafing early

"We've had all these people on holidays to walk or enjoy the amazing summer landscape here who were in shorts and tees yesterday and today they've been in the shops buying beanies and gloves and anything else to keep them warm," Thredbo Resort spokeswoman Susie Diver said.

"Higher on the mountain the snow settled enough for kids to make snowmen and with the wind chill it's been pretty damn cold today."

A weather bureau spokesman said the snow was caused by an upper level trough pushing very cold but moist air across the mountains.

Ossqss, you did not read far enough into the article of the first link. The following quote is from the same link:

"But "then we started to date [the ice] and we found that it wasn't that young," Willerslev said.

If the island had been free of ice during the last interglacial, it would likely have supported plants and animals.

In that case, DNA from those creatures should have been found instead of the DNA from the much older forest.

The new discoveries suggest that southern Greenland has been ice-covered for at least four times longer than previously thought.

"We have firm data to state that there was ice in central and northern Greenland," said Valerie Masson-Delmotte of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences in Saclay, France.

"The main surprise [of the new study] is the persistency of ice in southern Greenland," said Masson-Delmotte, who was not involved in the new study."

And then there is this quote, from the same article:

"Several studies have found that Greenland's ice sheet is melting today, so scientists are working to predict how much the melt might contribute to sea level rise if the world continues warming."

In other words, Ossqss, the article does not offer any support for a denialist point of view of the AGWT. Rather, since we know that the ice is melting now and the ice had been more persistent than believed in the past, this does more to support the AGWT. The original thought that the last sea level rise came from melting ice on Greenland. Now they know that the melt water had to come from some place else.

Your second link does not offer any support one way or the other concerning the AGWT. The second link only reinforces the first link's claim that we can obtain DNA from ancient ice.

Thank you, for helping to prove what what the scientist have been claiming concerning climate change. Great job! I thought you would eventually start realizing the truth concerning the AGWT.

Your third link concern a microbe. As the article states, we have known that microbes can survive in extreme environments. This includes very cold environments. The following quote is from that article:

"H. glaciei belongs to a rare family of 'ultramicro' bacteria that live in extreme environments."

Since this microbe lives in extreme environments then this would further support that Greenland did not have a moderate climate 120,000 years ago.

Nice video, Ossqss. I think it would have been better should the background music have been better.

Rie Oldenburg had later comments on that video - Tricked by the Heartland Institute - Strange. The Heartland Institute has never tried to trick anyone before. ... Have they? Well, what does a quick Google search say about this?

#182: It's not unusual for Chicago to receive 8" snowfalls in mid-January. What is unusual is for Chicago to have only received 1.9" of snow by January 12.

#183: The Summit at Snoqualmie receives an average of 435" of snow each winter; in the past month, just 23" have fallen, leading to a serious deficit. Usually by this time, all lifts and runs are open; as of today, just 62% are open. (BTW, if you're going to post a nearly two-month-old article, you should provide the date.)

#184: It's reassuring to know that it's cold in mid-January in Reykjavik; they didn't name the island it's on "Iceland" for nothing.

#185: Two things: 1) The reason the Vikings had to abandon their early attempts at agriculture in Greenland is the simple fact that it was too cold there. Denialists often like to state that there were crops raised there, yet they seldom seem to consider why the grand experiment in farming failed. 2) As has been explained numerous times, the mechanics behind the Arctic and the Antarctic are vastly different. (For starters: the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land; Antarctica is land surrounded by oceans.)

Scientists at the Danish National Museum have established that Nordic Vikings who settled in Greenland approximately in the year 1000 AD grew barleycorn, Mbl.is reports.

Remnants of barley have been found by Brattahlíð in South Greenland, the Farmstead of Erik the Red, father of Leif the Lucky who was the first white man to discover America.

Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblað first reported this, explaining that it has long been believed that Vikings had agriculture, including growing barley, in Greenland. Proof had not been found however until this summer when archeologists discovered minuscule remnants of barley during excavation in the area.

Peter Steen Henriksen, specialist at the Danish National Museum, told the newspaper that these findings significantly increase our understanding of the daily lives of Nordic people in Greenland a thousand years ago.

This for example means that the Vikings may have brewed beer in Greenland.

Rising temperatures in Greenland are resulting in an unexpected occurrence, growth.

Greenland

Greenland is a country the size of Europe, yet it has only 51 farms (all of them sheep farms except for one with 22 cows) and 9 forests, all of which are both tiny and cultivated by hand. The only vegetable grown in Greenland is potatoes. All other vegetables are imported, mostly from Denmark.

One of these forests, Qanasiassat, is beginning to thrive according to caretaker Poul Bjerge. Long since dormant, the pine trees in this forest have begun to show new growth.

Arctic sea ice extent remained unusually low through December, especially in the Barents and Kara seas. In sharp contrast to the past two winters, the winter of 2011 has so far seen a generally positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation, a weather pattern that helps to explain low snow cover extent and warmer than average conditions over much of the United States and Eastern Europe. In Antarctica, where summer is beginning, sea ice extent is presently above average.

Inhabitants of the capital region and other parts of Iceland woke up to a snowstorm yesterday. While drivers were stuck in snow and pedestrians fought the blizzard, Fréttablaðið’s photographers headed out with their cameras.

There were serious disturbances to the energy network of southwest Iceland shortly after 6 pm last night due to interference caused by salt and ice to the equipment of Landsnet’s control center in Hvalfjörður, visir.is reports.

The power was cut to the Century Aluminum smelter on Grundartangi in Hvalfjörður for four hours and an hour longer at the neighboring plant Elkem Iceland.

Blackouts were widespread across west Iceland, the West Fjords and in parts of south Iceland, and the hot water pumps of the Hellisheiði heating utility went dead because of electrical disturbances.

This disrupted the pumping of hot water to the capital region and for a period of time yesterday evening there was no hot water at all in Borgarnes, Akranes, Þorlákshöfn and the Ölfus region in south Iceland.

Also, the tunnel beneath Hvalfjörður fjord had to be closed twice yesterday because of the blackout.

A large team from Landsnet and Reykjavík Energy worked on repairs last night; shortly after midnight electricity was up and running again in all parts of the country.

According to Fréttablaðið, all domestic flights were canceled yesterday because of the snowstorm and many roads across the country were impassable.

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Blowing and drifting snow in Chicago forced the cancellation of at least 460 flights and may tie up commuters.

United Continental Holdings Inc., the world's largest carrier, canceled 200 flights at O'Hare International Airport, said Mary Ryan, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based company. Southwest Airlines Inc. canceled 100 from Midway International Airport, while American Airlines and its American Eagle regional carrier scrubbed 166, according to e-mails from the airlines.

The heaviest snow will fall later today and accumulations may reach 8 inches in the Chicago area, said Charles Mott, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Romeoville, Illinois.

Cars covered with snow are parked in the Tyrolean ski resort of St. Anton, January 10, 2012. (STRINGER/AUSTRIA - REUTERS) While winter has been mild across large parts of North America and Europe, the central and northern Alps have been a notable exception. Since late last week, heavy snow has paralyzed western Austria and southeastern Switzerland. Impressive even by local standards, the snow has buried towns, blocked roads and disrupted rail service in the heart of the Alps (see map).

The most heavily hit areas in Austria’s western Tirol and Vorarlberg regions received 1-2 meters (3-6 ft) of snow in just four days. Local authorities have elevated the avalanche risk warning to “high” as they continue searching for a missing 15-year-old skier near the Austrian city of Innsbruck

Local residents shovel snow from a roof in Hochfilzen in the western Austrian province of Tyrol, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012. (Kerstin Joensson - AP) Austria’s national weather service, ZAMG, reports that such copious amounts of snow occur about only once a decade, and in some locations once every 20-25 years.

Oh, my bad; I thought comments posted in a public forum were for, you know, the public, and that those wishing to have a response from just a particular person would be better served by sending a WU mail to just that person. Mea culpa...

Anyway, you'll seldom see the difference between climate and weather framed in such an elegant, easy-to-understand manner as in the following video: